Real Life Optical Illusions To Mystify Your Mind

Optical illusions aren’t just found in magazines or optometry textbooks. The world around us is full of visual trickery. Color, shape, perspective, and shadow can confuse our brains and make us question our physical reality.

None of the photos on this list have been doctored or Photoshopped— any strange phenomena you perceive is a product of your own point of view. Read ahead for a seemingly twisted arch, an apparently floating man, and the whole world in a patch of grass.

Body Swap

At first glance, it looks like this guy’s body doesn’t quite match his head. If you look more closely though, you’ll realize that it’s actually the guy who’s sitting down. His girlfriend is hugging him from behind and her head is over his right shoulder.

Either that or somebody skipped leg day.

Like Oil And Water

Although both of the liquids in this glass are transparent, you can only see the glass rod through one of them.

This illusion happens because light passes through oil at the same speed that it passes through glass. Light passes through water at a different speed, so the glass rod is visible at the bottom of the cup.

You’ll Float Too

No, this dude is not casually levitating a few inches above the asphalt. He’s just standing next to a wet spot on the ground that looks like it could be his shadow.

It’s so much easier to pull off magic tricks in photographs than in person. We imagine this trick wouldn’t be so impressive if we could just walk around the guy. Read ahead for the Ponzo illusion in action.

A Rock In A Hard Place

Do you see it yet? Look a little bit longer. Spoilers in 3… 2… 1: See that little rock sitting on top of the brick that is slightly smaller than the other bricks?

That brick isn’t actually smaller. There is a cigar sticking out of the wall and the “rock” is actually the burnt end of the cigar. Trippy stuff. Read on for an illusion that’s even trippier— literally.

To See The World In A Blade Of Grass

This patch of greenery is called “Qui Croire?” and it was created by French artist François Abélanet. The title translates to “who to believe?”

Although it doesn’t look that big from this angle, Qui Croire? is made from 3,500 square feet of turf, dirt, and straw. From any other angle, this grassy globe looks like a vast, irregular, weirdly shaped garden.

2D Building?

While this building looks like a flat slab of concrete, there are actually real, 3-dimensional people inside of it. Contrary to popular belief, this is not where all your favorite cartoon characters live when they’re not inside your TV.

The building is triangular, so you can’t see the sides of it from this viewpoint.

A Dip In The Road

This misleading floor pattern keeps people from running down the hallway. People are more likely to tread lightly if they think the floor has an inexplicable dip in it. From a different angle, this hallway looks perfectly straight.

We now resort to tricking people into behaving. Read ahead for the illusion that gave us The Flying Dutchman.

It’s A Mirage!

Thanks to an illusion known as Fata Morgana, it looks like the boat in the distance is floating just above the water. The name, Fata Morgana comes from the Italian name for a sorceress who supposedly used false land to draw sailors to their deaths.

Some people believe that this effect gave rise to the myth of The Flying Dutchman.

High Above The Clouds

I think we can all agree that this looks like the perfect summer evening. There’s nothing quite like laying on the ground staring up at the clouds, but this patch of water perfectly reflected the sky up above.

It almost looks like this place is hovering high above the sky. I’m in love.

Allan Key Stairway

We all have different names for these little wrenches: hex wrenches, Allan Keys, but I think we can all agree that we have 17 lying around the house because they come with every piece of IKEA furniture.

This person decided to make a nice little set of stairs for his collection of wrenches, finally putting them to go use.

Sneak Level 100

I will never get enough of 3D art. Even though I know that this isn’t a little man trying to sneak around the corner of a book, I really can’t help but think this is a little man trying to sneak around the corner of a book!

Considering I can barely get halfway through the game board in a game of Pictionary, these things will never not impress me.

A Devastating Realization

If you don’t like bad news, you’re going to want to skip over this one. Despite everyone assuming that this picture was a llama holding up and ringing a little bell in his little llama hand, it’s all a lie.

That’s actually just another llama wearing a hat in the background. Still cute, but not nearly as iconic.

A Bit Bigger Than Uranus

This person went out and found the perfect side table that resembled the largest planet in our solar system. I’m pretty sure they just found yet another moon orbiting Jupiter. Okay, that’s enough of a science lesson for today.

We’ve Come So Far

Thank goodness we don’t have to deal with these problems with our computer’s nowadays.

Kids have it so simple. They have no idea that the ‘save’ icon used to be an actual disk we had to use to save our terrible paint drawings. On a side note, I assume at least four of these guys are named Chad.

Same Here Bro

So, I’ve tried a couple of times to understand how these hair clips work, and I’m totally lost.

I get that I probably don’t have the thick head of hair to really get this thing to stick, but that’s a lot of trust to put in a clip. Also, what if someone actually thinks this is a spider and tries to swat it out of your hair? That could seriously hurt!